


The Newt

by Nines35711



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alien Planet, Animal Death, Animal Transformation, Animals, Death, Deities, Djinni & Genies, Immortality, Regret, Sad, Suicide Attempt, The Inevitable Death of Our Solar System, Worship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:40:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21729193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nines35711/pseuds/Nines35711
Summary: Long ago, when the Earth was alive and humans had not yet taken it for themselves entirely, there was a man. The man walked through a forest; one with huge, towering trees that would whisper about you and tell stories if you listened closely.Long after the Earth had been destroyed and humans were no more, there was a newt. The newt sat on a throne; one of stalks and leaves, that he could relax on and hear stories from his people. He listened even if he couldn’t understand them. He would stay here for them until he was no longer wanted, for they were the gentlest creatures he had met in the last 30 billion years.
Kudos: 1





	The Newt

**Author's Note:**

> This was based on a question someone asked in a discord server which was "If you could have one wish for anything (excluding modifying wishes) what would you wish for?" I responded with the wish to live as an immortal newt in the black forest and then thought further on how it would feel being the only immortal in the world and what would happen long after the world came to an end. Part of this was written while I was at work so the writing sort of changes part of the way through but I hope I stayed consistent.

Long ago, when the Earth was alive and humans had not yet taken it for themselves entirely, there was a man. The man walked through a forest; one with huge, towering trees that would whisper about you and tell stories if you listened closely. This man wasn’t listening to the trees that day. He walked without purpose, wandering aimlessly until he could find a nice spot to rest. He found this spot under an enormous oak tree that towered above the rest of the forest. Here he found shade and stretched out under the branches. As he laid his head down, the trees whispered “Goodnight” and “You are safe.”

The man’s eyes closed and instantly he woke again, this time in a world of blue.  _ Where am I _ , he thought, and the blue grew soft. Pulsating noises startled the air into the movement, scrambling his brain and leaving him dizzy. This was a language but not one he recognized. It was not the popping and humming of manspeech, nor was it the whispered rustling of trees. It was old but new, strange, though it seemed to greet him like an old friend. The man could not move away, for he knew not how to move; he could not tell it to stop, for he knew not how to speak in this blue. He wracked his brain trying to figure out if he had heard this before. The pulsing answered, making him sick. Something sparkled and fizzled before his eyes. The man watched in awe as red sparks popped into existence to take form. It shaped itself into something humanoid and began pulsing again. He felt fuzzy listening to it but tried to pay attention. When the pulsing stopped, the red thing looked at him with an expression in its eyes that he couldn’t quite understand.

_ You do not know my language, small man? _ The man shook his head, both to clear the fluff from it and answer the thing’s question.  _ Then I will speak to you in your own tongue. I am a djinn, and you a weary traveler who hath stumbled upon my home in this great oak. I will grant you a wish, traveler. _ The man wanted to say he wasn’t a traveler, he was just walking, but the words didn’t come and the djinn looked at him expectantly.

_ Can I think about what I want? _ He finally managed. The djinn nodded at him. He curled in on himself and thought. Sometimes the question would be brought up, ‘what would you wish for if you met a djinn?’ It was nothing more than a bit of fun, never able to become a reality but this was now his reality. He thought, and thought, and thought until the seconds turned into minutes turned into hours turned into days turned into weeks turned into months turned into years turned into centuries turned into millennium turned into eons. He had no idea how much time had passed since he had rested at the base of the great oak. When he unfurled, the djinn was in the same position it had been when the question was asked.

_ Do you have your answer, man? _ The man didn’t wish to think about what he wanted for a second longer so he nodded.

_ I wish to be a newt, a small slimy creature, that cannot be harmed nor killed by anything, that lives in a forest of black and green. _ The djinn hummed.

_ You are certain? _ He pushed his thoughts to the djinn and it lifted its hand. A moment, a snap, just the single smallest noise sent him reeling into darkness and the blue was gone.

The man opened his eyes and was met with rich, dark earth. The soil was nearly black from saturation and he could see minuscule droplets within it like they were the size of his head. He attempted to stand but found his limbs didn’t work like that anymore. He took a step and felt his body wriggle. He was a newt. He had expected it to be a dream, a joke, a prank from the trees in the forest. Instead, he was faced with the most wonderful realization that he had no worries and could not die. He thanked the djinn, though he was not sure it could hear him here. The man-turned-newt began an awkward crawling pace as he slid over the moist soil. He found its moisture could not keep him wet how he needed it to, so he was off to find water. The forest was unnervingly silent. Birds chattered as usual but these trees did not speak. There were no whispers or stories told, no leaves welcoming him, and it left him feeling more lonely than he had ever been.

He found a stream soon enough, and he could see something small darting across the water. He felt he should try to catch one, so he launched himself as well as he could into the water with a splash. He found it hard to catch any of them, and eventually gave up when his body grew tired. He dragged himself onto the muddy shore under a rock where he could be cool and wet.

The newt did not stay long. He was very small, after all, and he wanted to explore. One could not stay in one place for too long if they wanted to see their surroundings. The newt quickly took to his new life of wandering. He met other newts in the quiet forest and while they got on just fine, he felt they wanted something from him that he could not understand. He had not wished to understand newtspeech, unfortunately.

The newt watched everything in the quiet forest grow old and die, feeling remorse but not knowing what old age felt like. He wondered if he should regret the immortality portion of his wish. He got his answer when he met a frog at a pond. The frog did not speak manspeech or use tree whispers, just as all others did in this forest, but the newt felt closest to this frog, who sat on his lilypad and croaked. They spent a few years together before the newt noticed the frog’s hop become shorter, his croaks less melodious. The day the frog wasn’t on his lilypad, the newt knew to regret being unable to grow old and die.

The newt was left behind by everything. Men would come into the forest and take trees, and though the trees did not speak to him, he felt left behind by those, too. He wandered until he was picked up by a woman and put in a clear container. He was poked and prodded and jabbed until he was tired. He didn’t even know if he could have fought back as small as he was. It was exhausting. He could hear murmured apologies from the woman who would pick him up and place him on a dry surface to be blinded and touched. The newt outlived the woman who had found him, and he was stabbed and handled more because of it. He wondered if he would ever see the forest again.

He did not. He was kept in a container and sprayed with water three times a day. He wasn’t sure if it had been ten years or several hundred. The newt was eventually abandoned and his container was no longer sprayed. The room he was kept in went dark for the last time and no one came back.

He didn’t see the sunlight again until it was consuming him. It didn’t hurt. It couldn’t, for he had wished for it not to. The newt only felt the heat as everything was burned away, and then he was floating. His little lungs didn’t work anymore, so he stopped trying to use them. He was more minuscule than ever, and he didn’t have the moisture of the ground or the whisper of the trees to keep him company this time. The newt curled up and wished he never wished for immortality.

He would sometimes gain the motivation to wiggle towards the closest star and hurl himself into it. Whatever was contained in the star would shoo him out and send him away. Sometimes it was a djinn who wasn’t pleased with being disturbed and would offer to send him wherever he wished as long as it was far away. Other times he would just be pushed off to float in space again. He eventually found a planet that looked similar to what had been his home and squirmed his way to it until he fell to the surface. He found himself on a planet far different from his home. There was no grass or ferns or trees to whisper. No men spoke to him, and in fact, there were no men at all. There were instead strange creatures that the newt began to call second men.

The second men did not take, instead borrowing. The newt watched this from the ground, seeing them take bulbs from rattling stalks and bring back parts of the bulb to place around the stalks. Over the years he saw the love in this act, as more stalks grew from the parts they planted. These people were much gentler than the men he had known.

He was found one day and brought to a whole group of second men, a tribe. He feared they would do what the men had done, poke and prod and blind until he grew weary of living. This did not happen. Instead, the newt was paraded and loved. The second men did not touch him too much, treating him as fragile as his body was, and they would provide food they thought would please him. He supposed it must have made sense, him being the only one of his kind on this planet. He was immortal and unknown. They were bound to worship something like that. He was kept safe, not that he could be hurt in the first place. It felt nice to be left alone unless they needed something. The second men also died though. They grew old just like the trees, like the other newts, like the frog, like the woman who picked him up.

The newt wondered where the djinn was that had transformed him. Its home had surely been destroyed with the rest of his planet. He wondered if he found it again if he could ask to go back. Was it even within a djinn’s power to redo someone’s history? Would he remember this if the djinn could do that? The newt found the thought of knowing the death of the planet in his old form too horrendous. He curled up in a second man’s palm and let himself be cooed over and treated gently. It didn’t every chase away the thoughts entirely but he got a short reprieve. They were still there. On occasion, he could hear the whispering of trees. His mind would get fuzzy with the language of djinns. If he listened closely, he could hear soft croaking and the splash of a body entering still water.

Long after the Earth had been destroyed and humans were no more, there was a newt. The newt sat on a throne; one of stalks and leaves, that he could relax on and hear stories from his people. He listened even if he couldn’t understand them. He would stay here for them until he was no longer wanted, for they were the gentlest creatures he had met in the last 30 billion years. As he curled under the watchful gaze of his protectors, they prayed to him. "Goodnight," he said to them. "You are safe."

**Author's Note:**

> I post links to new work as well as art on my twitter, @nines35711


End file.
